Way Down Below The Ocean...

[roachello]

Whoahh I wanna surf that!

[westtexasred]

Actually, Somebody took over the company name and is going to make the ABM parts again.


http://www.abmmueller.de/index2.html

I don't think that Rickenbacker plans to put these on 650 anymore.John Hall posted this on the Rick forum

"We have, in fact, switched to Schaller for these parts, simply because there was no supply of the ABM parts.

I find it exceedingly strange that any new owners of ABM would not have contacted the major OEM customers of the previous firm; we've heard nothing at all from them. We were told that the company had previously been entirely liquidated and all equipment sold. Perhaps the most shocked about that development was Schaller, as they told me that they would have liked very much to acquire ABM but were advised there simply was nothing left shortly following the death of Klaus Mueller."

Whoahh I wanna surf that!

Thanks,Yeah I think it is a very sweet guitar.The the mini humbuckers are really quiet and they are voiced like a single coil.You
can get all kinds of sounds from Jangle to Crunch. The neck feels almost like a vintage telecaster neck but with a wider flatter
fretboard and a shorter scale(24.75").

[jcyphe]

"We have, in fact, switched to Schaller for these parts, simply because there was no supply of the ABM parts.

I find it exceedingly strange that any new owners of ABM would not have contacted the major OEM customers of the previous firm; we've heard nothing at all from them. We were told that the company had previously been entirely liquidated and all equipment sold. Perhaps the most shocked about that development was Schaller, as they told me that they would have liked very much to acquire ABM but were advised there simply was nothing left shortly following the death of Klaus Mueller."

That's weird. Maybe the guy's family or inheritor's wanted to be done with it. I hope it's not a case of somebody buying the name and just making junky parts in China. Which is happening more and more in the guitar world, scratch that, the manufacturing world period.

[Bacchus]

The the mini humbuckers are really quiet and they are voiced like a single coil.You
can get all kinds of sounds from Jangle to Crunch. The neck feels almost like a vintage telecaster neck but with a wider flatter
fretboard and a shorter scale(24.75").

I like mini humbuckers. I think I said before on here that it's like tha darkness of a humbucker, but with the snap, dynamic, and response of a single-coil. Great.

[Jesse]

I really like that guitar! I've always wanted a Ricky.....



And, we have the same Tele.

[westtexasred]

I found somebody else who had a 650a









Of course,his other guitar is a First Act Sheena,so maybe that is not a good indorsement.

[Nick]

Ahhh, I thought I recognized that guitar.

They're actually a pretty big in terms of modern hardcore bands. I have one of their albums but don't listen to it much.

[westtexasred]

Ahhh, I thought I recognized that guitar.

They're actually a pretty big in terms of modern hardcore bands. I have one of their albums but don't listen to it much.

I didn't notice until after I saw those pictures of Converge that Kurt was the guy who had written the 1st Harmony Central review of the 650A:

Product: Rickenbacker 650A
Price Paid: US $800
Submitted 06/25/1999 at 10:03am by kurt ballou

Features : 7
my 650A (A is for Atlantis) is a 1997 model. it is an all maple guitar with neck through body construction, short scale neck , 12" neck radius, 1.75" width at nut (that means really wide. like sg special width), medium frets, 2 humbuckers (volume and tone on each), a fixed bridge with roller saddles, black graphite nut, and a body style similar to the 620 series but with contours. i hate the way the contours are. they rounded everything except where my forearm contacts the body (the location where strats have nice big contours). if you aren't going to contour where you really need it, then don't contour at all and give us some cool looking binding so that we can justify the huge welts on our forearms in the name of style. this is by far my biggest pet peave with the guitar. mine also came with a case. the strap buttons suck. i always replace my stap buttons with dimarzio strap locks, but these are oversized machine screws threaded into the wood. there is a reason that wood screws were invented: because machine screws don't hold in wood. therefore, after i modified the dimarzio strap to accept the rick strap buttons, i had to duct tape it all down to hold it in place. one of these days, i'm going to glue dowel pins in the holes then redrill for regular strap buttons.

Sound : 9
my rating of 9 is post modification. the first thing i did after buying this guitar was to throw away the pickups, do some routing, then replace the pickups with an emg-81 in the bridge position and an emg-h (single coil in a humbucker shape) in the neck position. i found that the original pickups were dirty, fairly low gain, lacked character, and lacked upper mid range attack when played heavily distorted. the 81 gave me the crunch i needed and the h gave me the character. when i switched the pickups, i also moved the positions of the volume and tone knobs. for some reason, they positioned the volume knob for the bridge pickup as the furthest knob away from the picking hand, when it should be the closest. after those modifications, it sounded great. it became a clean, very balanced sounding (and feeling) guitar with tons of sustain. sometimes it sounds a little bit too bright, though. i tend to have to back off the highs on my amp more than i'd like. if they made a version with a rosewood fterboard or ebony fretboard and mahogony body, it might help. plus, the guitar would look a lot cooler, anyway.

Action, Fit, & Finish : 7
first of all, i must say that this is one of the best weighted guitars i've ever played. i almost bought an sg, but i hate the way it is headstock heavy and slides away from you. between the guitar's weight distribustion and strap button positioning, this guitar always seems to sit just where you want it. as far as the factory setup goes, who knows. i started modifying it as soon as i got it. i setup the action the way i like it and it plays wonderful. fortunately i set it up good at the beginning, because the bridge hardware has rusted so badly that there is nothing left of the screw heads to adjust with. if i ever want to adjust them, i'll have to buy a new bridge. but if i do, the first thing i'm doing is replacing all of the screws and springs with stainless steel hardware. the neck is solid and the truss rod is very effective. i didn't like the tuners it came with so i replaced them with sperzel locking tuners, but there was a problem, because the headstock wood is thicker than most standard headstocks so the sperzel pegs were a little on the short side. it still works, it's just a little annoying changing strings sometimes. the nut sucks. the g-string sticks like hell. the width of the slots really varies too much from the size strings they are designed to hold. even though i'm a vegetarian, i might have to sell out and get a bone nut which would hopefully be more consistant and lubricious. the finish is nice, but it is too thick. i ended up sanding the back of the neck (the finger board is next on my list) to get the feel i wanted. i really think this guitar would look better with binding and a rosewood or ebony fretboard.

Reliability/Durability : 9
this guitar is very tough. it has survived 2 u.s. tours and 1 european tour so far on which it has been dropped (read: thrown) on the floor, used to bludgeon cmybals, used (inadvertantly?) to break our singer's hand and almost his nose, and used (inadvertantly!) to break off my entire front tooth (i wish the guitar broke instead, but that is life). my only complaints in this catagory were with the bridge hardware and the strap buttons, but i mentioned those ealier. even though it has a roller bridge, i break an e or a string every other show so i alway bring a back up.

Customer Support : 5
customer support was very helpful when i was trying to find one of these in stock somewhere in the u.s. they don't make many of these each year so they are hard to come by. i really wanted one, and they helped me track one down. since then, i've had less luck with the company. my band has product endorsements for a lot of other equipment, and we want to get rick (we already have esp), but they won't endorse anyone who isn't tom petty, so i'm a little bit bummed out about that. but that's no big deal. my main problems is that when my bridge hardware rusted beyond recognition, i planned on drilling out the hardware are replacing it with new stainless hardware. well i was going to have to order the hardware from someone because nobody stocks little metric set screws around here. so all i wanted was the hardware specs before i destroyed my old hardware taking it out. my only other method would be to measure after destroying the existing harware, then order the stuff and wait, while my guitar sat there, out of order. not only did rick seem disinterested in my problem, but all they were able to provide was the name of the company that made them. no contact person or telephone number. my other beef with them is that when they have a factory second, they throw it in the trash. i could build the perfect guitar if i could get one in a partially finished state. imagine this: a rickenbacker 650 with neck and body binding, finished in tv yellow with gold hardware, ebony fretboard, all stainless screws and springs, emg pickups, body contouring at the forearm area and nowhere else. but they won't sell me something in an partially finished condition so that i can do it. you wouldn't be able to bind the body of this guitar after they do their contouring. it makes me mad.

Overall Rating : 8
i love the guitar more than any other guitar i've ever played, but there are little things that bug me about it. i look at it as a framework for the best guitar possible, but not the actual best guitar possible. it is certianly a much better value that a lot of the other guitars on the market right now.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Jackackack]

So, so hot.

[Susano]

"my band has product endorsements for a lot of other equipment, and we want to get rick (we already have esp), but they won't endorse anyone who isn't tom petty, so i'm a little bit bummed out about that."

Hahaha

[bassintom]

My nephew has the same/similar guitar..



his site Chris Batten and the Woods

[Nick]

After reading that converge dude's HC review I'm glad to know that Rickenbacker treats their professional musician clientèle with the same amount of disrespect that they do the hobbyist/local musician.

[Jackackack]

My nephew has the same/similar guitar..



his site Chris Batten and the Woods

Mmmm, Dakota?